Life Is A Miracle!

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein  

You have a choice – will you enjoy the miracle of life that life is or not?  That’s it!  You have your life that you are living today.  Everyday that you live your life here on this earth is a miracle.  We do not realize or appreciate it, because most of the time, we don’t feel that we are in any danger of losing this life we are living.

Visit the hospital and walk into some of the rooms I have walked into and you will understand what a miracle life is.  When someone is gasping for their next breath, they know what a miracle life is.  When someone forgets what normal feels like, because they have been living with chronic pain and they finally get a moments relief – they know what a miracle life is.  When someone gets the news from the doctor that there is nothing else that can be done, you can bet that person thinks about and knows what a miracle life is.

You have been given this moment.  It is a miracle.  You are not promised the next moment, so take the time right now to make the most of the miracle of the moment that you are living and live up to your full potential!

You are a special creation.  You have an amazing purpose.  You are a miracle.  Yes – you – the person who is reading this.  You may not realize it, you may not believe it, but you and the life that you are living is a miracle, don’t take any part of it for granted.

Breathe in, hold it! = Miracle!  Breathe out, hold it! = Miracle!  Breathe in and out =  Miracle!  Look around, what do you see? = Miracle!  Listen, what do you hear? = Miracle!  Rub your belly with one hand and pat your head with the other, and even if you can’t do it? = Still a miracle!

Your life is a miracle.  You are a miracle.  Say:  ”Thank You!”  He heard you and smiled! = Another Miracle!

Live Your Life!

Some people endure life and some people live life.  I hope that you are living life, but more important than living life is making sure you are living the right life.  A lot of people live life, but not the life they were created and gifted to live.  The problem with not living the life you were created to live, is you miss some amazing things and other people miss some amazing things that could and should flow to and through you.

What life are you living?  The reality for each and every human being is this:  There is room for improvement and growth in your life!  You and I need to be honest with ourselves and with one another about this reality.  In what areas of your life do you need to improve and how do you need to grow?  It is different for everybody.

Take some time to get into some still quietness and really think about this.  Think about your life and how you can live it better.  Think about what you were uniquely created for.  Think about what you need to do that only you can do.  Think about some of the issues that you need to take on and take out.  Make this personal and stop dragging everything and everybody else into it.

You are alive and you are alive to live.  You are alive to live the life that only you can live.  Live this life for Your Creator’s glory and for man’s blessing and you will discover that life is worth the living!

Easy To Say - Hard To Do!

Matthew 22:37 says:  ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’  It then goes on to say that we are to love one another as we love ourselves.  I know what I am supposed to do and I have moments where I really get it right.  I also have moments where I really get it wrong.  I could continue to play the game that most everyone else in our world loves to play and pretend, but what good would that do me and where would that get me in my spiritual journey?

Lord, I want to love You, the way You deserve to be loved, the way You want to be loved.  When I stop and think about everything you’ve done for me, for us, I just can’t help but to be amazed at Your goodness, grace, forgiveness and restoration.  We are so undeserving.  On our best day, we could not even come half-way close to earning anything good from You.  Yet, out of the great love and amazing grace that You have for us, comes this incredible opportunity to love You back.

I don’t want to love You back with just any love.  I want to love you back with all of my heart.  Please help me to stop guarding and holding back parts of my heart.  You have more than proven that I can trust you.  I want to love you with all of my soul.  The reality that You have saved and protect my soul, does not escape me.  Help the soul that You have saved, protected and loved to love You back.  I want to love you with all of my mind and this seems to be the place of greatest challenge, because my mind can become divided and segmented before I even realize what is going on.  Help me Lord, to let You control my thoughts and organize my mind.

I see so many play the game and then realize that I am often one of the so many.  Lord, I don’t want to be.  Please help me to make my heart the pure home for You that it needs to be.  Help my soul to know Who it belongs to, has been saved by and show it by impacting all the areas of my life and living.  And help me to fight and win the battle of the mind by not thinking as the world would have me to think, but by thinking the thoughts of my Most High God.

Lord, I love You, and I know I can love You more and better, please help me.  Lord, I love others, but I know I can love others more and better, please help me to make progress in this area of my life, not just so that I might progress, but so that I might really love You…  G3!

I shot a video this morning and as I was walking into the camera view I stirred up a rabbit!  Watch the bottom left corner at very beginning of the video, but watch fast because the rabbit is moving!  Also hope you are encouraged by the message and are able to grab you some solitude soon!  

I'm Not God!

None of us would ever admit to thinking that we are God, but a lot of us like to put ourselves in the position to play God!  The problem with this is – in order for us to get in the position to play God, we have to remove Him from the throne of our lives and put self in that place.  The really big problem with this, is that it can happen and we almost not even realize it!

God is the only One that deserves to be on the throne!  When we take Him off of the throne, it is always with the purpose of replacing Him and the usual replacement is self!  When we put self on the throne, our worship has moved off of the Creator and onto the creation and we know that this is nothing but trouble!

I have noticed and I hate to admit it, but this is almost a daily battle for me!  Just when I think that I have this battle won, something comes along to prove to me that I am not even close!  While I hate to admit it, I am glad that I can admit it, because admitting it – is the first step to heading life in the right direction!

Admission is a good place to start, but it is only the beginning!  May God help me with this journey!  I guess the best way to start is to say:  ”Hi, I’m Michael Joe and I’m not God!”

Pastor Wayne Coderio

Wayne Coderio, Pastor of New Hope Church in Hawaii ask a very interesting question in one of his messages called “Increasing Your Time!”  The question:  ”What is the 5% that only you can do?”  There are a lot of things that we do on a daily basis that anyone can do.  There are some things we do, that a lot of other people with the skills and training could do.  But there are some things that only we can do and these are the things that we need to be giving the bulk of our energy and effort to!

Your spiritual growth is your responsibility!  No one else can grow spiritually for you!  What do you need to do to grow spiritually?

You have to figure out how to stay inspired with a right attitude!  What do you need to make a part of your “Inspiration Package?”

You are the only one that can love your family the way they need to be loved by you!  How do you need to love your family?

You are the one that God created to serve Him in the unique and special way that only you can!  What will you do to better serve God and serve others?

You are responsible for your 5%!  You are the one that has to figure out what you 5% is!  This 5% is what you are going to be accountable for when you stand before your Creator!  What is your 5%?

Mistakes Can Be Education!

So you made a mistake?  Stop fretting over it!  Don’t let a mistake wreck you, instead learn from it and move forward!  Too many times in life, we let our mistakes get us off track.  And if we don’t let it get us off track, there is usually someone close by, who is  more than willing to throw it up in our face to try to help us get off track!

The truth is:  We all mistakes!  If you are a human being, then you have made and are going to make mistakes.  It does not matter how talented and gifted you are.  As human beings, we are created with free choice and choice means every now and then you are going to make a bad or wrong choice.

Don’t let mistakes get you off track, hold you back or get you down.  Just make sure that you invest a little time to learn from the mistake.  In fact, if you learn from the mistake, then you get to move it from the mistake category to the education category!

What did you learn today???

It's A Choice!

I listen to a fair amount of speaking and preaching to help encourage and grow me to try to keep my mind focused in the right direction.  One of the things that almost every speaker that I have heard talks about is ATTITUDE!

I have heard, read and even said many times that “Attitude Is Everything!”  I don’t really believe that!  I don’t believe it is everything, but I do believe that it is a very big something!  A wrong attitude will mess everything up, while the right attitude will help everything to be better.

One of the biggest battles I have faced and continue to face in my life is keeping my attitude right!  John Maxwell says:  ”Attitude isn’t everything, but it is the one thing that can make a difference in your life.”  We need to think about our attitude.  We need to work on our attitude.  We need to make our attitude better.

You have a choice and you have the power to decide and make a difference for you!  You can have a good attitude or a bad attitude.  You can have a positive attitude or a negative attitude.  You get to decide for you!  It does not matter what anyone else does to you or says about you.  You and you alone control your attitude.

Attitude can make or break you.  Living with a positive and right attitude can make all of the difference in your life, while living with a bad attitude can keep you from experiencing amazing blessing.  Take a moment today to do an “attitude check”!  How is your attitude and what can you do to make it better?  Really take some time to think about this.  Be honest with yourself and do what you need to do to get a better and more positive attitude – you will be glad you did!

Don't Forget To Recharge!

My phone is great!  It let’s me talk with people, with it, I can take pictures, it will tell me what the weather is going to be, it allows me to buy things and will even let me throw birds at pigs!  Pretty cool device, but there is one problem!  Every now and then, I forget to plug it in and the battery gets low.  My phone is pretty much useless without the power of the battery, so I have to plug it in and let it recharge!

In each of our lives, we have a power source.  Allow your power source to become too low without recharging and you are going to be in serious trouble.  Our power source is our heart and we need to stop and take time regularly to make sure that it is getting recharged!

How do I recharge my heart?  By spending time with my Creator!  I plug-in and I use the gifts He has given me and discover inspiration that does amazing things.

I open my eyes and take the time to look around me and I appreciate all of the beauty.  I listen beyond what I can hear and hear something that most people miss.

I touch and am touched by other human beings with the realization that we really do all need each other!  I breath in and smell the power of the living and I breath out and lay claim to impossible possibility!

When I actually take the time, I can taste that life is good and my heart is recharged and I am ready!

Ready for what?  Whatever great adventure is next coming my way!  Live blessed!

One After The Other!

I wanted to take a moment to wrap up the conversation we started this week on dealing with and getting rid of anger.  We all know that anger left unresolved is dangerous and unproductive.  We also know that while it is not easy to get rid of anger, it is possible.  To get rid of anger and it’s harmful impact, there are some things that we need to remember and remind ourselves of on a regular basis!

We Must Forgive Others!  This is for their benefit and ours!  We tend to be a selfish, angry, bitter and unforgiving people, especially if someone has done us wrong or hurt us!  This mixture of bad attitudes does not honor God and what He has done and wants to do in our lives!

My wife – Joy can do 100 right things, but I tend to only notice and focus on the one thing she does wrong!  Why is that?  Because, I expect her to do what is right!  The problem is my selfish nature!  My selfish nature will cause me to forget the 100 right things and focus on the one wrong thing, while allowing anger and bitterness to take control of my life!  And the real problem here is that – this attitude robs me of what God forgives me for – life not in the flesh, but in the spirit!  Jeremiah 17 says: “Man is cursed when he takes his trust from the Lord and puts it in the flesh!”

Forgiveness Sets Us Free!  Only when you get unbound from the one you can enjoy the one hundred!  Forgiveness is not optional for the child of God!  It is a command!  Jesus says: “The measure we use will be used on us!”  To forgive is to release the debt!  When I forgive I surrender/give up/let go of the debt to God!  Jesus is our perfect example!  In I Peter 2:23-24 it says:  “23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”   This is why Jesus was able to pray:  ”Father forgive them for they know not what they do!”

We want to hand others over to God for judgment and punishment, but God desires to show them the same mercy, grace, forgiveness and love that he shows you and me! Matthew 5:44-45 says “44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

So How Many Times Do I Have To Forgive?  Are you really ready for the answer to this question?  A wise person once said:  ”Only if I am keeping a tab, can I keep count!”  If I’m keeping a tab, then I am not really forgiving and wiping the slate clean!  Ouch – gets you doesn’t it?

So our only other option is to pull out “OUR BIG EXCUSE!”  We love to say:  ”I would forgive them, but they have not ask for my forgiveness!”  But then we remember – God forgave us way before we ever thought to ask for it, otherwise we would have been wiped out a long time ago!

Another way of thinking about it is like this:  Have you remembered to ask God to forgive you for everything?  At some point in time, we are going to fail to ask God to forgive us of something, because we are imperfect, but God gives His forgiveness anyway and we have to decide if we will receive it and what we will do with it!

There are three steps to breaking the addiction of anger!  1.) Receive God’s Forgiveness!  2.) Give Forgiveness To Others! (This sets you free!)  3.) Allow others their time to receive it!  When they receive it! (It sets them free!) And the beautiful thing:  FREEDOM BRINGS GLORY TO GOD!